Willits bypass court case coming down to the wire

Brooktrails board met May 28 to gather concerns from the community associated with the bypass project. The board expects to review a draft a letter to CalTrans summarizing residents? concerns about the bypass project to at its June 11 meeting.

During the past month a flurry of motions and counter-motions were filed by both sides of the federal lawsuit aiming to stop construction of the Highway 101 bypass around Willits. The final hearing is scheduled for 9 a.m. June 14 in a San Francisco federal courtroom.

The slow-motion legal dance started in May 2012 when the Willits Environmental Center, the Redwood chapter of the Sierra Club, the Center for Biological Diversity and the Environmental Protection Information Center filed suit in federal court against Caltrans, the Federal Highway Administration and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Federal Judge Jeffrey White offered his preliminary opinion in the case when he denied a temporary injunction to delay the project. He said, "the moving plaintiffs do not contend that CalTrans should not proceed at all on the Willits Bypass Project. Rather, their position is that, in light of purportedly new information and new circumstances, [r]easonable two-lane alternatives exist," and CalTrans should have prepared a supplemental EIS to evaluate those alternatives.

"In order to prevail [in the lawsuit] on the merits, the Moving Plaintiffs will be required to show that the [CalTrans] decision not to prepare a supplemental EIS was arbitrary or capricious," said White.

White left the door open for the plaintiffs to provide further evidence to convince him differently at the June 14 hearing.

The California Farm Bureau joined the lawsuit against CalTrans in August 2012 but withdrew from the lawsuit April 15 after reaching a separate settlement with CalTrans.

The Federal Highway Administration was excused early due to statute-of-limitations issues.

In the intervening months since the injunction was denied, reams of CalTrans and Corps documents were requested by the plaintiffs and all those which could be located were provided to the judge and the plaintiffs for review.

The final phase of the trial began on April 12 when the plaintiffs filed a 40 page motion requesting the judge rule against CalTrans and the Corps. The motion listed 17 cases and 28 statutes providing backup to the plaintiffs' motion. The brunt of the motion lists six specific project changes which should have required CalTrans to reopen the original environmental impact statement. The issues range from impacts to rare plants, anadromous fish, farmland and wetlands.

The US Army Corps of Engineers and CalTrans filed counter-motions on April 26 requesting the case be dismissed. Between CalTrans and the Corps they provided 84 pages of documents, citing 37 cases and 20 statutes or regulations supporting their arguments.

The basic position of the two government agencies is its personnel did not act in an arbitrary and capricious manner to not require a supplemental environmental impact statement.

Another shorter series of counter motions were filed last week, leading up to the court showdown on June 14. White has a reputation for limiting the time spent in the actual hearing to key questions which he typically provides to all parties to the lawsuit in advance. He followed this process during the lead up to the injunction hearing.

A court decision is likely by the end of June.

Bypass protesters are vowing to continue to raise objections, independent of the lawsuit.